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(Note these spoilers are for a comic book, and not a future episode.) I've been reading this thread all evening. While I understand that OP has no interest in other Who media (understandable, as I don't care for it either), it should at least be noted that a comic book last year gave some closure to "Ethernet Head" guy from Eccleston's run. He's become a villain haunting the Doctor in all his incarnations, angry that his mother died and his life ruined by the Doctor's ditching him. Of course, he gets his time travel power from a greater evil; and eventually sacrifices himself to save The Doctor, who notes upon burying him that he was a good companion after all. At least the Doctor sort of owned up to being a dick there, eventually.
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Aug 31, 2014 10:27
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:09 |
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Toxxupation posted:the titular Doctor isn't a human; he constantly marvels and becomes engrossed in even the smallest minutae of a random person's life; he practically pulls cartwheels when a character does something he approves of; and even when he's upset with humanity, when it's betrayed him or let him down, there's a sense that he dissaproves with a wry smile and a shake of his head. The Doctor loves humans, can't get enough of them, and even when he's mad he still revels in their mistakes the same way an upset parent would criticize a wayward child. Somewhere in between, Eccleston's Doctor was not quite the same as Tennant. He basically saw humans as evolved primates, consumed with little petty things and getting in over their heads. He gave praise when they showed stronger wills than he gave them credit for, but it was a cynical view none the less. I get the feeling if he was in this two partner (and much of this season feels like a new character going through the remainder of Nine's plot ideas) he would not be impressed and thrilled that humans had somehow managed to adapt to making a colony in such an uninhabitable place, but instead would be grumpy that the apes went and unleashed SpaceDevil and ignored all the obvious warnings. But yeah, the Tenth almost coddles humanity like it's his little ant farm. They have varying degrees of how much they are willing to trust people.
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Sep 1, 2014 06:34
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Finding a bunch of posts in this thread and then seeing it's all Torchwood is massive amounts of disappointing.
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Sep 2, 2014 21:57
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I haven't seen the episode for a while, but I was under the impression anything out of vlog was part of Elton's Narrative Flashback. By that I mean, Concretia doesn't show up in the blog format, and so if it makes you feel better there's a segment of people out there who believe Elton went insane and has dreamt up BrickBJs.
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Sep 4, 2014 04:25
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Stairs posted:I love how Elton being into rock is considered both the best and worst aspects of this episode. 
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Sep 4, 2014 08:37
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People keep sticking these two episodes together, but there's nothing in the next episode like what we just went through. The next episode is just Doctor Who peaking it's kids show quotient. It's not good, but it's not so bad that it turns around and becomes good again. Love And Monsters is all that, and then defies physics and takes off into it's own bizarre universe of misogynistic fetish fuel. This upcoming episode is, I don't know, maybe a Sarah Jane Chronicles script that was rejected for being too dark. It felt like one to me.
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Sep 4, 2014 23:28
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There are things about the RTD era I actually miss. One I had forgotten about until this thread was creative use of licensed music like the ELO stuff here. I know why they did it. The show started going international, and BBC has really liberal rights to copyrighted music that their for-profit divisions abroad don't. Next season has a whole 90 seconds of silliness (I Can't Decide) removed on Netflix and home video internationally, which is probably when they decided to give it a rest. In retrospect, it's probably amazing they were able to keep the songs in the Cassandra episode given the budget dedicated to this thing originally.
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Sep 5, 2014 18:01
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Fine, have a Love And Monsters thought that I was thinking this afternoon. And I'll even spoiler block the titles of episodes to come where they are referenced. Concrete Blowjob Lady has gotta be one of the few points (the only point?) in the revival where someone gives, "well your life is completely hosed up to the point where you're simply a face on a slab, but at least you're living!" I almost feel that the horrible existence of that, if you think about it, is why RTD or somebody in production (TVTropes simply used their "word of god" tag) suggested the whole thing, along the Scooby Doo chase, is part of Elton's hyperactive imagination and can be discarded if you like. Doctor Who seems to consistently fall on the side of there being worse ways of living than simply being dead. Cassandra had to come to grips with the fact that she was hardly anything anymore, clinging to life. The Doctor won't kill, but knows some undesirable ways to live (Family of Blood). And while I've never watched the classic series beyond a few choice episodes, the Crypt Keeper that shows up between Delgado and Ainsley is another Cassandra style example of someone so desperate to live that they're barely anything anymore. gently caress, they're STILL doing variations of this. (Clockwork Man in Deep Breath) I've never been sure what to make of it, but given that the show's merch/toy audience is usually to the older kids who are in the process of realizing that they too are going to die sometime, the idea that in this existence there are a hell of a lot worse ways to exist is I suppose maybe a helpful coping mechanism? Because you could always be saved by a magical space wizard, only to live as a slab of a sidewalk sucking off a nerd, and who the gently caress wants that? Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Sep 6, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 03:24
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I already gave my opinion of this episode on the last page, so all I can say is that I laugh at you for being upset with DmC for story reasons. I can sorta get the gameplay criticisms from combat gods, who got mad that somebody made a game for people who didn't previously like that line of games. But the story has that South Park thing going on where it's so gross about every kind of sacred subject one could think of that any ability to be offended wears off. Thankfully, things are about to pick up. I look forward to the other review.
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Sep 6, 2014 04:19
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DoctorWhat posted:Seconding this. Make every effort possible to make sure all episodes going forward are completely uncut relative to the original UK premiere broadcast. That's the only glaring omission I can think of, and I went through all of NuWho (ugh) on Netflix up to the ending of the Astronaut season. You can just link him to the video and tell him to check that out at the worst. EDIT: I have watched the Olympics since I was six years old, remember when they alternated every four years instead of every two, considered going around the world to one just to see a few events, and spend many hours pasted in front of video feeds from three different country broadcasters when they're on. I watched the Beijing opening ceremonies in a crappy old red video live at 5AM from someone streaming CCTV. I basically suck the IOC dick. And even I found the way they were framed in this episode to be corny as all hell. That said, I would have loved it if they only had an American presenter confuse the Doctor for some famous British celebrity that many Americans didn't know, or at least hadn't heard of at the time. I've watched so many bad NBC broadcasts, it just seems right. Because if David Tennant or a space alien that looks like him WAS to appear at the Opening Ceremonies, Matt Laurer would confuse him with Morrissey. It would happen, just trust me. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Sep 6, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 06:27
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Less episodes whitewashing and glorifying tragedies like the Olympics, please. And more episodes about World War II! EDIT: Given how many times I've seen children under five beat up inflatable cartoon daleks, or nerds snap up comics and audio dramas, I think if The Doctor fought the forces of consumer capitalism regularly then DoctorWhat would be angry with it's WALL-E like hypocrisy. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Sep 6, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 08:48
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If Doctor Who didn't previously have a secondary audience of people who watch it as an alternative to EastEnders, it sure did by this episode. My smartphone keyboard automatically capitalized EastEnders. gently caress.
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Sep 7, 2014 20:45
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Rose is kind of exceptional, as her narratives are to the effect of, "life was dull, and I was disappointed at how nothing of note ever happened and I might live a life unfulfilled. And then the Doctor appeared, and with him he brought explosions and racist killing machines and, at long last, lots of chances to die or live dangerously." Apparently, life in London at the height of the Iraq War was 'boring' until the Doctor showed her monsters and murderous aliens. And even then, most people were willing to suspend disbelief for the purposes of the story until they added a, "and boy does that stuff turn me on!" at which point a collective head scratching began and some fans started liking the character a lot less. As for my own ideal qualities of a companion, I'll talk about that when we move forward a few episodes.
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Sep 8, 2014 03:09
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Tempo 119 posted:What does the Iraq war have to do with anything Nothing much, it was just a really contentious time (or at least seemed as much on the news from the other side of the world)
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Sep 8, 2014 04:39
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Forget it. I was just trying to emphasize that there was sort of a weird death seeker element to the whole thing, but it also makes sense given that Rose-era Who had a lot of villains hiding in plain sight on present day Earth. So you could perhaps say that things were more interesting than they appeared on the surface. Especially when you're one of those people so thick that you don't notice the massive spaceships crashing and blowing up on a semi-regular basis during RTD's run. 
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Sep 8, 2014 05:44
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I remember watching "Dalek" for the first time, and commenting to a friend who kind of hooked me into the show that it felt like the author had to resort to some Poochie-level bullshit when Rose essentially tames a Dalek, causes it to question it's own purpose for existing, and then it obliterates itself even after a small army and Van Staten's alien weapon collection was basically useless. All because it came into contact with her unique special snowflake and it's heart grew too many sizes as a result. Then again, between that episode and Parting Of The Ways she seems to have quite an impressive record VS Daleks.
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Sep 9, 2014 00:34
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DoctorWhat posted:Young women and middle-aged history professors. I'm totally aware now that the Dalek state of being has been elaborated in the classic show, in episodes to come in this space, and episodes that premiered so recently that I have leftovers from that night that are still good. But I started where Occ did, and it definitely felt like "Aaaaah! Human girl doesn't hate and got her compassion all over me ahhhh (boom)" But if I can ever be bothered to take that next step and listen to even one Big Finish, I promise you it'll be Jubilee.
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Sep 9, 2014 02:33
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Toxxupation posted:Without a cheerleader, without any sort of buddy at all, who, well, who is The Doctor? Batman has explored this sort of angle before, which helped define Robin with story purpose instead of just being a pandering fantasy for the young boy demographic that bought the majority of comics in the 50s. Somebody could and should do a season arc about this question. Even better still, do it right after the Doctor's metamorphosis when he's often the most confused with himself. I haven't watched this episode in a while, but what I seem to remember is some military hardware running down the street of another soap opera town and opening fire on the webbed spider-ship and bringing it down. They don't even appear to be an elite unit for handling such things, as Torchwood in it's giant villain organization form was just finished off and Classic series shadow organization UNIT is nowhere to be seen. This has got to be one of the few times where Her Majesty's Civil Defence just shows up and easily guns down a threatening alien ship without even attempting contact? Am I wrong?
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Sep 9, 2014 05:06
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Craptacular! posted:But if I can ever be bothered to take that next step and listen to even one Big Finish, I promise you it'll be Jubilee. I am a piss poor writer so you shouldn't expect an Occ style writeup. But in the spirit of this thread, I'm now listening to a somewhat goofy, sound effect laden story featuring a Doctor that I haven't watched on TV even once and many fans hated anyway. You fuckers.
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Sep 9, 2014 20:43
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DoctorWhat posted:ahahahah After one "episode", I'm okay with this just because of the weird dystopian elements that sounds like something a BNP supporter posted to DeviantArt. But to American ears, the concept is very "Radio 4." Like even with the audio book industry, I'm not sure anyone in the US makes productions like this on any serious level. Only the country that still runs The Archers.
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Sep 10, 2014 03:12
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Martha's my favorite revival companion for one reason: she actually has to help care for the Doctor's well being and safety as much as vice versa. I understand exactly what makes Donna a breath of fresh air, her ability to just accept these absurd premises like floating in orbit with an alien man and quickly forget about the implications of these things and get back to thinking of her wedding. Donna's ability to shrug off the show's weirdness and wonder if an alien invasion means she needs to find a new temp job is wonderful, but isn't appropriate for episodes where the show is trying to take itself seriously. Donna as a long term companion would require negotiable changes to her character and the nature of the program if they were to find a happy medium. Martha is not under strict orders to not do anything dangerous and always be home for tea. She doesn't just ask "what do we do, Doctor?" Sometimes she has to take matters into her own hands and do things and often she has to do it on her own and face the challenges of the time or place she's in without The Doctor's advice or his silly psychic ID card or his magical unlocking tool. Opp and others have already mentioned that the story gets messy and has "breakup" vibes, but what annoys me more is they could write more companions as strong as this, but they don't.
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Sep 11, 2014 06:04
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mind the walrus posted:We will praise his LGBT-pandering When the gently caress has it ever been pandering? I can think of one event in a Doctor Who episode from 2014 that felt like pandering. And even then it was pandering through a straight man's lens. I'm trying to think of the time when I, a gay man, was being pandered to by this show and can't remember it. Yes, some of the morals given are questionable (particularly in The Idiot's Lantern) but they weren't pandering.
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Sep 14, 2014 06:25
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So, again, I'm not always a fan of RTD's prior work, because it's so laden with stereotyping, but I just never felt the gay stuff in Doctor Who was too strong? There's one episode I can remember coming up here that has a few throwaway scenes with a couple, but it wasn't like they were grabbing rear end onscreen. Doing the whole "these guys... are married!" thing was more shocking in 2006 than 2014 so I give it a pass then, too. All the sex feels heavier handed by way of Moffat, honestly, and not just The Gay Agenda. It goes way back, too. The production notes for "The Doctor Dances" stated that all the dancing is a network-friendly analogy for loving. So, the Doctor barely remembers the foggiest clue on how to Meanwhile, RTD just has women falling over his Doctor, which at least is kind of understandable because holy crap David Tennant is handsome compared to Hipster Frankenstein (who is my favorite, but come on.) Un-editing your edit. Nope. Don't do this. --Annakie Somebody fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Sep 14, 2014 |
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Sep 14, 2014 18:51
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The fan take on the gay content, I think, comes due to the fact that before Doctor Who the most-known RTD work was Queer As Folk. Which I have issues with (based on watching a season and a half of it's American import) for excessive stereotyping and reinforcing some negative opinions. I think in a lot of ways RTD carried some of the same stigma as Ryan Murphy, where you could watch the first season of Glee and didn't know who was at the wheel you could conceivably think it was made by straight people, but then the second season comes along and you eventually suspect a writer on board (I hate this term, but can't think of any other). If you go search YouTube for "Doomsday reactions" you'll see a bunch of girls and young women fighting back tears and getting mad at their televisions. I think RTD writes this sappy Rose nostalgia for them, but about here began to realize what they collectively were doing to Martha's ability to be a believable character and started to balance it. After all, these girls don't cry because they want to be an air headed blonde, they cried because they wanted to bone David Tennant. RTD realized he could make different characters and still keep this audience if they all just fall under the Doctor's spell relatively quickly. It's acceptable because Tennant is handsome enough to justify it, but the cult that liked the classic show weren't happy with what it did to the Doctor/assistant dynamic. People may have paid money to see Jo pose nude with a dalek (seriously), but nobody wanted to see Tom Baker's Doctor sucking face with her. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Sep 15, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 18:51
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Something I wanted to mention in this thread and forgot, Martha has a great theme song. I find most of the music in this show serviceable for what's going on, usually not too distracting but also not notable. But the few times I heard this song (particularly an episode where Martha and the Doctor are just having a chat in the TARDIS after an adventure) it really stood out to me.
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Sep 16, 2014 05:10
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Solaris Knight posted:This derail is extra fun for me. Now we have to get Occ into Power Rangers. This would probably be my specialty, because I watched every episode of every season from the start of MMPR until the end of Lost Galaxy, and I have good memories that I'm sure would be totally destroyed by seeing the show again at 32. If you just want to destroy Occ via a long running program, give him The Simpsons or something.
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Sep 16, 2014 19:29
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Immortality seeking has actually been a trend this season. The giant enemy crabs in Gridlock set up the motorway for this, supposedly, and also came out worse for it. And now you have this guy and his Ra's AlGhul act. In both cases, the Doctor has been forced to do a little bit of playing God figure and tell the mortal races that no, they can't have what they want. Not at this price. I'm just pointing it out because I'm genuinely surprised Occ didn't notice it given the attention he pays to the show. I hadn't picked up or had forgotten the crabs intent until I had read his review.
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Sep 20, 2014 09:16
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I don't know about the insular fan community, because I find it not too bad. I mean, Tumblr has plenty of looping GIFs of people's mouths moving with subtitles dialogue if that's what you're looking for. Most those people are friendly. I get that the OLD community was insular as all hell, but I guess I don't consider it relevant anymore. People getting red-faced shouting over 30 year old episodes of Who aren't really listened to by the majority. Though I hear about some people "hoarding episodes" and wonder what the hell is going on. Isn't sitting on a treasure trove of Second Doctor episodes or whatever highly illegal? Is it just that the state's broadcaster doesn't care?
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Sep 20, 2014 18:34
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Yeah, the Sun-Man thing was just not within the budget of the show at this time. This kind of premise might be alright in Moffat's Who, but it didn't work here. He reminded me of The Shockmaster, a pro wrestling character is only known for having fallen on his face while bursting through a wall like the Kool-Aid Man in his debut.
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Sep 21, 2014 06:29
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gently caress, was Buffy popular in the UK? That show didn't even crack top tier network cable in the States, though it was popular as a show could get while being on the American equivalent of BBC Three.
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Sep 21, 2014 07:58
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Following the theme of "Americans who don't know loads of Doctor Who attempt to talk about", I turned on SyFy once last year and saw a dreadful K9 show starring Australians. Between that and the Dalek movie, this show leaks intellectual property all over the place.
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Sep 21, 2014 23:16
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MrL_JaKiri posted:That's because it used to be that the rights for something created by a writer would stay with the writer; hence the Beeb having to license the daleks from the estate of Terry Nation and him trying to shop them around. Similarly with K-9 and Bob Baker. I sort of knew that, but I think what really surprised me is how many studios are willing to make something out of just a small piece of Doctor Who. It's not like selling a car that's missing doors, it's selling just a door and some network says, "Yeah, I think I can build a car around that." I like to think the classified ad said, "pulled off a vintage Whomobile". Also Occ please click that link TYIA. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Sep 21, 2014 |
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Sep 21, 2014 23:46
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This episode is an example of what I mean when I talk about how Martha has to help The Doctor as much as he helps her. Maybe with an exception of some really loopy Moff episodes, this season must have some of the longest and most prominent examples examples of The Doctor handing his fate over to the assistant. And the more ludicrous and loopy the stakes are, the less real Doctor Who feels. This scenario feels somewhat real, as sci-fi as the memory watch gimmick is, and as unexplained as the threat is. At least, it makes more sense than "you must take the TARDIS into the past and become a demigod" like season 1's capper. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Sep 24, 2014 |
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Sep 24, 2014 20:09
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Ten had that "I give you one chance to surrender, and if you don't take it I will dispense the most insane cosmic torture imaginable." The whole Last Chance To Repent thing was a common theme with him, and I think the reason old fans dislike him is a nigh-immortal Doctor bitching about living forever and denying you immortality, and giving you a moment to repent your sins, all feels very deity-like. On top of his New Earth shtick where he tells the plagued to come join him in the waters and be healed. The Jesus Figure stuff is light in season 2, but picks up here and doesn't let go. Also, as much as people talk about Blink, it's kind of a poor live watch episode. Partially because it's been analyzed to death, and partially because it works best alone. Now, the episode after that would probably be a great live watch episode.
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Sep 25, 2014 04:10
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Not that the presence of the Phantom Zone or unbreakable star-chains really need to be thought about, but it's possible that The Doctor took some toys from the Time War. Probably explains the fob watch, and more importantly why he's only had that one even though "The Doctor is being hunted by a thing" is a common premise.
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Sep 25, 2014 06:14
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I think if you're going to go down that hole, you better have liked Rose and want more poo poo like her "character development."
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Sep 25, 2014 06:55
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^^^ Is that who it is? Huh. I thought it was Bartz. Of course Oxx is a winner. His taste in bishounen is better than yours. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Sep 26, 2014 |
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Sep 26, 2014 02:41
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armoredgorilla posted:Even for games with big numbers, 9 million is a lot to lose by. Read this in Tenth Doctor voice. No regrets.
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Sep 26, 2014 03:46
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I know someone who is 6'8 and finds RTD Who mostly unwatchable, so if only we had a TARDIS... Anyhow, Cassandra certainly isn't the first or last time Doctor Who plays with "living forever isn't worth the cost" as an idea, I figured the point was that she was basically a Cosmic Racist. I mean, Nine tells Rose that "(humans) never consider the possibility that maybe you survive" and then Cassandra is wheeled in shortly after, which I guess some could be mistaken into thinking she was humanity's survival. But I think humanity just started loving space aliens at some point, and Cassandra refused to have a part of that. Although by that point, her ex-husband she jokes about (if he exists) might be quite closely related to her. 
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Sep 26, 2014 22:19
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:09 |
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I think Blink suffers in the long term because its given Moffat the impression that he's bloody brilliant, and people want more episodes like it. He's a better writer for these kind of "fluffier X-Files" adventures than the sort of Middle School Comic Book that RTD is running, but The Empty Child and The Girl In The Mirror are basically now outliers of his writing. Which is kind of sad.
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Sep 27, 2014 04:48
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